Community
This second chapter in Titus focuses on the roles of people within
the community. Elders who are men are to
be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, sound in love, and
sound in steadfastness. Elder men need
to know what is going on and what is best for a community. They need to know their faith and live it
out. They need to be an excellent role
model for those who will come after them.
Elders who are women are to be reverent in behavior, not
slanderers, not slaves to wine, teachers of what is good, responsible for training
the young women to love their husbands and children, self-controlled, pure,
working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands. Notice the particular emphasis that Paul
gives to teaching and training. Paul
knows what we should all know. It is
mothers and grandmothers who are particularly skilled in passing along family
values.
Young men are to likewise be self-controlled. They are to have speech that is undefiled. In other words, they need to practice what
they see in the older men and women.
They are not to give their opponents any reason to be able to condemn
them or their manner of teaching.
Bondservants and slaves are to be respectful to their masters. They are to give the masters no reason to
consider them argumentative or troublesome.
They are not to steal from those who have more.
What is this really all about?
Community. It may be a little
idyllic and we might not be able to live up to this standard all the time. But it is all about the standard. These are the principles that make up the
foundation of community. Young people
see the examples of others around them and they begin to grow up. They mature.
They give up their childish ways and their worldly passions and begin to
think about others. As they think about
others, they begin to teach and influence the people around them.
The Grace of God
This process of maturing is actually an analogy to salvation. Salvation has come to us even when we don’t
deserve it – just like the wisdom of the elders comes to us when we are young
and impulsive and don’t deserve it. The
salvation of God trains us to renounce ungodly passions – just like the example
of the elders in the community around us teaches us to renounce ungodliness. In fact, even the wait for eternal life is
not unlike the process that we all endure while waiting for our opportunity to
become wise.
The truth is that Jesus Christ came and died for us. None of us appreciate it at the beginning. We
don’t even understand it at the beginning.
But we grow into a deeper faith with God. We learn from His example. The process of becoming a disciple of Jesus
is a lifelong process that we don’t earn.
It is handed to us, like wisdom, as a prize we do not earn.
Life in Christ
In chapter 3 we hear again the call to live life according to our
calling from God. However, here in this
chapter we can see that there are consequences to living in faith. We will come upon those who do not desire to
live in peace. There will be those who
like nothing more than controversies.
There are people who like to complain and make matters worse.
There are people who want to make faith about something else
besides Jesus and the cross. As Paul
says: genealogies, controversies, dissensions, and quarrels about the Law. In Paul’s day they wanted to argue that if
you weren’t Jewish you couldn’t have a relationship with God. They wanted to argue that if you didn’t obey
the Law, you couldn’t be saved. They
just simply wanted to argue.
The same is true today.
There are people that make the case that you have to be a certain age
before you can truly believe. There are
people that assert you must be baptized a certain way or else you can’t be
saved. There are even some people who
believe that you must be a particular denomination or you can’t be saved. These are all controversies that we bring
upon ourselves. The truth is that there
is only one way to a relationship with God: through the cross of Jesus. The rest is simply our humbleness and
obedience to Him according to His calling for us.
In Closing
As Paul concludes this letter, he genuinely asks Titus to come to
Nicopolis. Titus has been away from
Paul, and Paul genuinely desires to reconnect.
This is true spirituality.
Disciples in Christ understand that for the sake of doing the work of
the Lord it is important to occasionally be apart from one another. However, genuine disciples of Jesus Christ
look forward to being reunited in the faith as well.
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